Through the Mud Archives - North West End UK

16Nov

By Dylan MooneyNo Comments

Scotland

Through the Mud – Traverse Theatre

Spanning past and present, Apphia Campbell’s Through the Mud explores racism in America during the Black Panther movement as well as Black Lives Matter. Filled with a gospel and blues soundtrack, sung live by the performers, this is a show with a strong message but some struggle of identity. With only two actors, we follow the stories of Assata Shakur (Apphia Campbell) during the civil rights movement and Jim Crow laws while flipping back and forth to Ambrosia Rollins (Tinashe Warikandwa) a college student wrapped up in the Black Lives Matter protests in 2014. Both actors also play smaller, secondary roles in their counterparts' stories. Initially, these changes between past and present can feel confusing, trying to keep up with what time period we are in. Accent changes are quite subtl...

Through The Mud – Summerhall Main Hall

Opening to screened news footage of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a mixed race student (Tinashe Warikandwa) is moved to join the protests and become a fierce advocate in the Black Lives Matter movement. 42 years earlier Assata Shakur, as a member of the Black Panther Party is violently involved with the civil rights movement, leading to a conviction for the killing of a State Trooper on the New Jersey Turnpike. Shakur (played by Apphia Campbell) later escaped prison and fled to Cuba, where she still lives and remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. The two women share the stage with Shakur as a sort of ghost mentor, reliving her own fight, as the student becomes ever more embroiled in the 2014 escalating violence, following one of the main prot...

Through the Mud – Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Extraordinary! The first word to come out of my lips after this exceptional performance. From the creators of ‘Black is the colour of my voice’, comes a powerful new story about the experiences of two African American women separated by 42 years, but suffering the same racial discrimination living as citizens in the, supposed, Land of the Free. Written and performed by Apphia Campbell and co-produced by Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Stellar Quines, Through The Mud is a re conceived version of Woke, the one-woman play which won Campbell a Scotsman Fringe First Award in 2017. Although I never saw Woke, changing this from a one-woman to a two-woman play looks to have been a very inspired idea indeed. Alongside the seasoned Campbell, is the excellent Tinashe Warikandwa playing...